Johnnie St. Vrain: New rules of TV ad volume take effect soon

By Johnnie St. Vrain

Posted:
10/23/2012 08:22:27 PM MDT

Updated:
10/23/2012 08:23:15 PM MDT

Dear Johnnie: It has been a few years since a bill was passed to regulate the volume of television commercials to equal that of the television show. I think I heard about a year ago (more?) that it would have been going into effect soon. It is pretty obvious that hasn't happened! What do you know? Thanks so much. -- Shhhhh...

Dear Shhhhh...: When looking into this answer on the U.S. Federal Register, I discovered that the Federal Communications Commission "has received complaints about loud commercials virtually since the inception of commercial television more than 50 years ago. Indeed, loud commercials have been a leading source of complaints to the commission since the FCC Consumer Call Center began reporting the top consumer complaints in 2002."

Yet, it took an act of Congress to turn down the volume.

Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act on Dec. 2, 2010. President Obama signed it on Dec. 15, 2010.

The CALM Act gave the FCC a year to adopt rules that require commercials to have the same average volume as the programs they accompany. Those rules were adopted Dec. 13, 2011. Broadcast television stations and pay TV providers then had a year to be in full compliance.

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